nearly half way up the perpendicular rock, at a thousand or fifteen
hundred feet above the water, and rather on the southern than on the
northern side, the rock suddenly thunders, lightnings dart forth, and
then retire like those toys which lengthen out and spring back again in
the hands of children. They contract and enlarge; strike the opposite
cliff, re-enter the rock, issue forth again, recommence their play,
multiply their heads and tips of flame, grow bristling with points,
strike wherever they can, recommence again, and then are extinguished
with a sinister abruptness. Flocks of birds fly wide in terror. Nothing
is more mysterious than that artillery issuing out of the invisible. One
cliff attacks the other, raining lightning blows from side to side.
Their war concerns not man. It signals the ancient enmity of two rocks
in the impassable gulf.

In the Lyse-Fiord, the wind whirls like the water in an estuary; the
rock performs the function of the clouds; and the thunder breaks forth
like volcanic fire. This strange defile is a voltaic pile; the plates of
which are the double line of cliffs.

VI

A STABLE FOR THE HORSE

Gilliatt was sufficiently familiar with marine rocks to grapple in
earnest with the Douvres. Before all, as we have just said, it was
necessary to find a safe shelter for the barge.

The double row of reefs, which stretched in a sinuous form behind the
Douvres, connected itself here and there with other rocks, and suggested
the existence of blind passages and hollows opening out into the
straggling way, and joining again to the principal defile like branches
to a trunk.

The lower part of these rocks was covered with kelp, the upper part with
lichens. The uniform level of the seaweed marked the line of the water
at the height of the tide, and the limit of the sea in calm weather. The
points which the water had not touched presented those silver and golden
hues communicated to marine granite by the white and yellow lichen.

A crust of conoidical shells covered the rock at certain points, the dry
rot of the granite.

At other points in the retreating angles, where fine sand had
accumulated, ribbed on its surface rather by the wind than by the waves,
appeared tufts of blue thistles.

In the indentations, sheltered from the winds, could be traced the
little perforations made by the sea-urchin. This shelly mass of
prickles, which moves about a living ball, by rolling on its spines, a